Backpostiest

Posted on Dec 21, 2015 @ 8:13pm by Lieutenant Eve Dalziel & Ensign Lysander Elgin
Edited on on Dec 21, 2015 @ 8:14pm

Mission: Promethean

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“Backpostiest”
(Continued from “Belong”)

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Location: USS PHOENIX, Deck 17
Scene: Classroom
SD: 2.51109.0133
Time Index: A few hours before “Second Star to the Right”

“There's a hole in the bottom of the sea
There's a hole in the bottom of the sea
There's a hole
There's a hole
There's a hole in the bottom of the sea…”

Eve watched the new teacher, John Tennant, as he led the class in song. It was mostly for the younger ones’ benefit, but it seemed like the older kids were more than willing to show solidarity. Mister Tennant had initially sounded more nervous in requesting their help than she had remembered from when he boarded recently, but then again, it wasn’t every day you tried to do your job with a fleet-sized gun to your head. As the students kept things level, so did he.

Lysander Elgin had joined her when the call came for assistance with the stressed students; he hadn’t had much of a choice, really. They were now sitting in the back of the class, monitoring the situation, quietly talking.

“I was joking when I asked if you were good with kids,” Dalziel quipped. “But it turns out you are.”

He gave her a sheepishly grateful expression. He’d kept them entertained telling a fairy tale story Eve wasn’t familiar with, something about a princess and a pea, and managed to calm them down. She, on the other hand, had tried to teach the children how to do a somersault, with varying degrees of success. Between the unconventional efforts, the class was more emotionally and physically balanced than it had been before their arrival.

“Oh dear,” the aCns said as an afterthought.

“What?”

“I had taken the liberty of making a light breakfast and some coffee, and I’m sure by now it’s gone cold.” His voice was a pleasing tenor, with the melodic 'pan-terra' accent common to most Humans in the core worlds. The voice was jarring for a moment until Eve realized it was because she'd somehow unconsciously expected him to sport the same brash twang as his aunt.

She shrugged. The caffeine was the only thing she was missing right now, not to mention the need to return to the personnel file of Dexter Marxx. “I appreciate your efforts. And I know it’s a bit late, but welcome aboard, Ensign Elgin.”

“It’s been my pleasure, Sir,” Lysander said with a smile.

Since the moment he and his fraternal twin sister Asta had arrived, Eve could easily see the resemblance between Kass and her nephew; They shared the same copper hair and blue eyes, the same stubborn chin and easy smile. What they didn't share was anything else. Where Kassandra was a tightly coiled spring waiting to fly into action, her nephew gave the impression of being so relaxed Eve half expected him to ooze into a puddle and take a nap on the floor. A definite go-with-the-flow type, Eve imagined that most of his appeal as a counselor, aside from being easy on the eyes, was the fact that nothing his patients might say would cause him to react with shock or horror, at least on the outside.

Eve settled in, not ready to leave, but comfortable letting the instructor run the show while they observed. “So, we’ve spent the entire morning either investigating the CO of the CENTURY or trying to still the maddening crowd,” she said gently gesturing to the children. “What’s the good word?”

Lysander didn’t look exactly sure about what the woman meant, but he didn’t let it phase him. "I'd say I know all about you and have read all your papers, but I'm afraid that would a lie. Also, creepy. As it is I'll just have to admit I'm woefully unprepared and promise to devote an hour to asking you for the answers to all the things I should have known sometime over lunch." He paused, seemed to realize that has sounded rather like he was hitting on her, and then rushed on hurriedly: "A purely professional lunch. I wouldn't, I mean not that you aren't a very nice looking- seeming- woman but... oh drat." He sighed. His cheeks were pink, but the aw shucks smile on his face told Eve he wasn't that bothered, in truth. "I should have stopped speaking about five sentences ago, shouldn't I?"

“Not at all,” Dalziel chimed in, trying to sound reassuring. The twins had been brought to E-4 by the DEMETER. Edgerton had taken great pains to round up anyone who mattered to the excommunicated crew of the PHOENIX, and the Elgins had been caught in the familial crossfire. They both had desires beyond serving on their aunt’s ship, but it was a great comfort to know they were far away from the prison camp that the leader of the Neo-Essentialists created under the thin guise of protective custody.

The Counsellor reflected on her first real meeting with Kass. She had broken Cade Foster’s nose without remorse. But despite the act of violence that had brought her there, her coarse language, and even coarser behavior, she’d decided early on she liked the blind woman. At the very least she owed the woman a little extra care with her nephew.

The Major didn’t strike Eve as the kind of woman who would change her colors for anyone, not even her own kin. It couldn’t have been easy having Thytos for a mom. But, seeing the young man now, he was surprisingly well-adjusted, intelligent, and didn’t take himself too seriously.

"Go on then, Sir," Lysander's voice broke into her thoughts. She looked at up at him and his grin widened fractionally. "Ask me."

"Ask you what?" Eve asked.

"What everyone with a counseling degree who has ever met my mother has asked: what was it like growing up with her as a parent." He seemed mostly amused and still in good humor, but there was an undercurrent of wistfulness to it that made her think perhaps he wished people didn't find his upbringing so shocking.

"And?" Eve got the distinct feeling that this would likely be the one and only time he would address the topic directly.

“My aunt has many talents, being a mother isn’t one of them. She never wanted children, and that probably would have been for the best, she just didn’t have the emotional toolbox to relate to us, and she had more than her share of demons she was fighting with. My mother Cyril forced us on her. I don’t know what she was thinking, maybe that Kass would settle down and find some sort of peace if she had people she felt responsible for something. Then she died, and we ended up with Kass.” For a moment an expression of deep gloom settled on his face. It sat for a moment before it passed and the amicable smile returned. “Listen, Sir, I don’t want to give the impression that Kass was an abusive, horrible mother and that our childhood was miserable, but…”

“But Kass isn’t capable of taking care of her own emotional needs, much less those of other people. I’m sure she tried, but she was never really able to fulfill that role, close that emotional distance,” Eve said knowingly. It was pretty much what she had figured.

“Just so. She didn’t mean to be, but she was the quintessential uninvolved parent. She took care of all the core needs, taught us the skills she thought we’d need, tried to be involved, but she never gave us much direction. If we got in trouble she’d be there to pull us out of it, but only after she’d decided that we’d borne the brunt of the consequence of our actions, and learned something about making better choices. She never really made a connection between how her actions and her inability to make healthy decisions in her own life had any impact on us, as though her personal life existed in a sphere separate from her as a mother. Like the drinking, which you’ve likely noticed by now.” He shrugged. “But her loving us was never in question, so I suppose there’s that. She also has friends around her like Harry and Seph who always stepped in, I think one or both of them was always in the wings helping while we were growing up. She has her ups and downs, but I think that I can safely say we’re a functional family in our own dysfunctional way.”

Eve nodded in acknowledgement. “I can see that, and having you both here is incredibly reassuring to the Major. Don’t ever doubt that.”

Lysander grinned back. “That’s just it, Sir. We don’t.”

The pale woman rested her elbows on the table, steepling her fingers. “So, the ship’s been without proper Intel since the day Edgerton put us on the “Federation’s most wanted” list. What was the propaganda machine like?”

“It was…” Lysander seemed to search for adequate words, but stopped. “Did your parents ever tell you stories as a child to scare you into behaving? La Llorona or the Boogey man? Things like that?”

“No, but I know what you’re talking about. Are you saying they turned us into something like that?” Eve raised an eyebrow.

“Yes, exactly. They made you something to be scared of, bringers of war, and merciless destroyers of innocent lives. Your assault on the prison to rescue Jacob Crichton didn’t help that image. At the risk of sounding like Auntie Kass, core worlders are insulated from most of life’s hardships, and even the idea of conflict is enough to make many of them beg for someone to take over and keep them safe, regardless of the freedoms they’re giving up. After the military coup, the typical ‘we know what’s best for you’ mentality took over. Complete military rule trying to pass itself off as a country club, always dangling the potential of violence over our heads whenever there was protest. When we were at Camp Eureka, they took great pains to shelter us from the obvious signs that we weren’t free to do as we pleased.”

“How long was it before you knew the truth?”

“Oh- that you weren’t traitors?”

“Yes, that,” Eve mused. The combination of impeccable manners and bluntness was becoming more expected as they continued to talk.

“It was only a few days. I mean, I’d like to say that I’d never believe that Auntie Kass would have betrayed the Federation, but unfortunately I couldn’t, not with any certainty. She’d been pretty angry the last few years, at life in general, and the Federation specifically. But I didn’t think she’d kill all those people on the DISCOVERY like they said. She made some sort of vow about not killing, always took it very seriously,” Lysander’s face was screwed up in concentration as he tried to think of any useful information he could. Eve raised an eyebrow, glancing sideways at him. She had a feeling sometime in the future, this was going to end up in her office as the topic of a family counseling session. Lysander was oblivious to her inspection, and he continued. “The real tip-off was when they brought the Secretary of Starfleet to the refugee camp.”

“How so?”

“You have a military coup, and then claim you can’t adequately protect Madam Secretary unless you shuttle her off to a secret location? Not exactly a confidence builder. Plus, she looked madder than a wet hen.”

The Cns recalled her meeting with Martine in her office at Council Headquarters. “I know the look.”

“She made a point to clandestinely inform as many of us as she could of Richard Edgerton’s true nature and motives. She didn’t have to do that.”

“I’m pretty sure she’s known of the Neo-Essentialist movement since the PHOENIX Project was set into motion, and likely before.”

“She saved our lives. When the DEMETER arrived, she made sure we got out. She took responsibility for all of us.”

“Well… It’s our turn now. To take some responsibility.” They both smiled.

“That sounds great,” Lysander agreed.

Eve’s comm badge sounded off. [[Kane to Dalziel.]]

“Here.”

[[We’re out of time, Lieutenant. I need you to present everything you’ve gathered so far about Marxx. Conference room.]]

Eve shrugged at her partner. So much for tomorrow morning. [[Be there in fifteen, Sir.]]

“Mister Elgin, if you would come with me,” Dalziel gestured as she stood. She moved with a directed calm. They informally gestured their goodbyes to the class and before long they were in the corridor. Normally, the middle of alpha shift wouldn’t be that busy, but the entire world of the PHOENIX was just one big deadline. Orderly streams of crew, normally nestled in their respective departments, went about the sobering business of trying to save their own skins.

The sense of playfulness that had been on the woman’s face had been replaced by a cold and pensive look.

Lysander had no issues noticing the change. “Something’s wrong.”

“We had twenty-four hours to respond to the Neo-Essentialist fleet. Now it sounds as though we have none,” Eve replied grimly, turning sharply in the direction of the turbolift.


***
A wee bit anti-climactic.

A Joint Post By

Alix Fowler
as
Ensign Lysander Elgin

and

Susan Ledbetter
writing for
Lieutenant Eve Dalziel